"
"But where are you going to-night?"
"To the fields--to some empty barn, if I can find one with a door
unfastened, into which I may creep. I have been singing all day, and
have not earned money enough to pay for a lodging."
The full moon shone broad and clear upon the girl's face. Looking at
her by that silvery light, Sir Oswald saw that she was very beautiful.
"Have you been long leading this miserable life?" Sir Oswald asked her
presently.
"My life has been one long misery," answered the ballad-singer.
"How long have you been singing in the streets?"
"I have been singing about the country for two years; not always in the
streets, for some time I was in a company of show-people; but the
mistress of the show treated me badly, and I left her. Since then I
have been wandering about from place to place, singing in the streets
on market-days, and singing at fairs."
The girl said all this in a dull, mechanical way, as if she were
accustomed to be called on to render an account of herself.
"And before you took to this kind of life," said the baronet, strangely
interested in this vagrant girl; "how did you get your living before
then?"
"I lived with my father," answered the girl, in an altered tone. "Have
you finished your questions?"
She shuddered slightly, and rose from her crouching attitude. The moon
still shone upon her face, intensifying its deathlike pallor.
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